Also known as Hemingbrough Parish Council. This Blog takes you to the heart of Council meetings so you will see and hear what really happens when the different gang members follow their own pet interests. Although recent times fully justified the ‘Bear Garden’ description I had hoped the team of Councillors elected in 2015 would live up to their pledges. Some hope!

Sunday, 22 January 2017

It’s Hemingbrough Parish Councillor Rutting Season again. (1)

Waking from hibernation, it’s hard to differentiate
between dreams, nightmares and reality.
A short stroll in Main Street on Christmas morning cleared my head. That ****** lawnmower is back in
conversations again nine years after it exploded into a Council meeting. So are the £5.00 and £10.00 notes given to
Senior Citizens at Christmas until a few years ago.

The January Parish Council confirmed it. Testosterone-fuelled tensions are
rising. Old stags are gathering their hinds
for the symbolic mating. Bellowing and
roars cross the Council table. As the
May Rut confirms or appoints a new Council Chairman, the clashing of horny antlers
will be heard for a few months.

Politically astute Chairman Strelczenie pushes ahead with
village housekeeping and improvements while some colleagues grind their
axes. Regular visitors to the Bear
Garden public gallery can spot four factions.
Those who want to keep the hardened Old Stag. Those planning to oust him. The Hagg Lane Green Group Protection Fanatics. The private venture Village Hall Group sometimes
mistaken for a Council Committee. There
aren’t many who genuinely get on with all the parish responsibilities without
axes.

Until May, residents cannot be sure which agenda topics
genuinely concern residents, and which are part of the ritual, rutting
season.

The Council shut the public out of a pre-rut warm-up by declaring
discussions of the Village Green Registration Update were not for their ears.
They waited until the December meeting was underway before declaring their
decision instead of listing it in advance on the agenda. Their ploy suggests they were about to
discuss a topic during which they may breach a legal obligation to keep information
confidential. Alternatively, they may
have simply decided they didn’t want the public to know what was going on,
which they shouldn’t do! Either way,
they let the cat out of the bag. The
Hagg Lane Green Wars may have entered a new phase. The private Hagg Lane Green Group wants to
own the land already registered as a Hemingbrough Village Green.

A Councillor mumbled about it at the January meeting
which sounded like ‘no progress’ but it was hard to hear in the public gallery. Deliberately so? This topic brought ‘the Lawnmower’ back into village
conversations. (More later).

The innocuously described agenda item 8(i) “United
Charities” must have been part of the rutting ritual.At least one Councillor must have wanted this
surprising agenda addition to be discussed in public.It harks back to the requirement for the
Council to curtail involvement in the Hemingbrough United Charities (Registered
Number 224203).The Council has the
lawful right only to recruit and appoint Trustees when the Charity formally
notifies it there is a vacancy.

The Press
reported the Council’s inapt connection that brought the ‘Grandiosh of Tosh’ to
prominence and revealed the subsequent shenanigans.Anyone wondering why it surfaced again will
have to rely on the village grapevine as the Item was withdrawn without
discussion.

Maybe the Letter to the Council distributed to Councillors with the
agenda (see below for excerpt) was the reason.Maybe it reminded them of the official Parish Council statement that
remains on file and their role in withdrawing the Christmas money.

“Statement from the
Chairman of the Parish Council, December 2011”

“Many of you will
already be aware that the Parish Council turned down the donation request from
Hemingbrough United Charities for £1000 this year and I would like to take this
opportunity to explain the reasons for this decision which are twofold.

Firstly, following
an investigation by external auditors, as a result of concerns raised by a
resident, they reported ‘we have concluded that the procedural approach taken
by the Council may have resulted in an unlawful item of expenditure’.

The Council clearly
must take responsibility for the part they played in agreeing donations in
previous years. Secondly, there had been concerns raised by the Charity
Commission itself regarding how the Hemingbrough United Charities was being
administered. They advised that the
Charity was in breach of its Constitution by setting an age limit for
recipients - the Charity was for ”the poor", and poor people come in all
ages not just when they get to 70 years old.

The Parish Council will, of course, continue to support this worthwhile
cause when these issues have been resolved and the Charity is being managed in
line with its Constitution.

Kristina
Wilkinson. Chairman, Hemingbrough Parish
Council”

Anything is possible during the rut! Here is a reminder of the 2016 Rut.

I think it was very fortunate that Councillor Procter did not take over the Council. This view is of the January 2017 Council discussing a planning application for 21+ dwellings on land to the east of School Lane. Councillor Procter and two of his colleagues, a quarter of the Council, are outside the room having declared "interests" in that application. Someone remarked that Procter's scheme to build a village hall might involve the same land wanted for housing.

The recent acrimonious History of Hemingbrough Parish Council told in 629 Blog Posts

London’s most famous Bear Garden served as both a theatre and a bear-baiting, blood sports arena.

The bloodthirsty entertainment consisted of vicious dogs attacking tethered victims. The bear, chained to a pole in the centre of the ring, was set upon by a pack of dogs that tried to kill the bear by biting its throat. The bear was baited for about an hour.

Bear baiting started in England during the Middle Ages. It was patronised by all classes of Elizabethans including the Queen, courtiers and diplomats. In 1648, theatres were closed by the Puritans but Bear-Baiting was allowed to continue and was popular throughout the Puritan era. The practice died out as people became more civilised and considerate.

Records don’t show if the eleven Parish Council participants are direct descendants of the Elizabethans who enjoyed that blood sport more than 400 years ago or if this is a recently formed re-enactment group. All appears normal at first. There is the fifteen-minute public open-forum when the occasional resident will talk about a local problem. Sometimes, the local constabulary puts in an appearance as a warm-up act to talk about the declining, reported crime rates. Soon, the opening ritual is over. Life will continue for another month, nothing will change, and the supporting cast troops out to leave the bear-baiters in private to get on with the main event. Because of the high-cost of bears, and general disapproval of such blood sports outside the village, the bear has been replaced by a Parish Councillor. He is quickly chained to a pole and the baiting and blood-letting starts. Passions are aroused, and soon the blood is boiling and Councillors are jumping up and down on their chairs. Participation varies from the simmering, smouldering, pressure cookers to the angry, eye-bulging explosives that can be heard throughout the village. Occasionally, the two Selby District Referees will walk out in disgust only to return a month later to see if the victims survived and will endure another round. This may have continued in secret for many years but one night an ‘incomer’, ignorant of the rules, stayed behind when the other two residents and the constabulary paraded out. He had had the audacity to mention the words ‘complacency’ and ‘Councillors’ during the warm-up. Sensing a new victim, and scenting blood and easy prey, the attack dogs tore into him with a vengeance. In his innocence, the incomer had brought a notepad and pencil with him to make-up for his failing memory. In that hysterical, charged atmosphere, however, the chief dog-warden could see only a ‘pointy-stick’ instead of a pencil. He tried to restrain his pack with the warning “Can I remind councillors the resident is writing down everything we say!” but they were already off the leash for the rest of the night. After the meeting, the incomer earned a mild rebuke from the Parish Clerk. "A quiet, polite and gentle approach was thought to be confrontational and a breach of bear garden etiquette." Councillors were horrified when the incomer kept turning up armed with his pointy sticks. Eventually, a professional from the Yorkshire Local Councils Associations was sneaked into the village by some Councillors for a clandestine review of the rules. That clique decided to reinforce their side for the next baiting by inviting the YLCA professional to join them. In true local form, they forgot she was supposed to be on their side and rounded on her instead and when she accused them of being very disrespectful to her, she was silenced by a shout from the sidelines, “It’s always like this!” That well and truly rounded off her lousy day. Only that afternoon, she had to give a personal apology to the incomer for what she had written about him, and there he was reading out details as a prelude to the blood-letting.

The February 2009 Parish Council Meeting was interrupted by the former Chairman during a particularly nasty bit of bear baiting by shouting “There’s a Mole in here! I told you there was a Mole.”

The present Chairman responded immediately with “We are not talking about that! We are not talking about that!” He tends to repeat himself when agitated in the style of the late Fred Elliot, the Coronation Street butcher.

As my name was mentioned and the former Chairman was waving his arms in my direction, I wondered if either of them had accused a colleague of giving me privileged or confidential information. For some months, Councillors have wondered how I can be so well briefed.

There was the notorious case when I challenged the Yorkshire Local Councils Associations and received their apology for an inappropriate characterisation of me. During that embarrassing fiasco, their Chief Executive had written to me expressing his Association’s view that “the document to which you refer may not have been legitimately obtained.” As ‘the document’ had been circulated only within the parish council, his view meant a Councillor must have broken the rules and slipped me a copy on the sly. The day after I challenged the Chief Executive about the Association’s view he went on long-term sick leave and it was left to his Deputy to explain they repeat only the words they are given. As an aside, let me state that ‘Elvis is alive and living in Hemingbrough’. When they have read this, I wonder if they will repeat those words too!

What the YLCA did not understand, and neither did Parish Councillors, was some months ago I had asked the Parish Clerk to give me the Council briefing papers three days before the meeting, as well as their Agenda, which is a practice recommended by the National Association of Local Councils.

Either the Clerk did not tell Councillors I had taken advantage of that recommendation, or Councillors had not understood or forgotten the ramifications. As nobody asked me how I knew so much, I sat there laughing inwardly about their agitation and hunt for the imaginary mole.

The Hemingbrough Mole

Having invented The Hemingbrough Mole, Councilors tried to prove it existed. To help them, here it is, in the village Convenience Shop. It will be making photo calls at various village locations. Maybe the Bear Garden?

The Mole leaflet I displayed at the village Post Office on Saturday morning was torn down before the early afternoon, much to the surprise of the Postmistress who has never known anything like it before.

Perhaps the person who did that could put one pound in a charity box to cover what I paid to have it displayed, and leave me a message, even an anonymouse one, on the blog.

What humans say about us.

Moles are not the most beautiful of animals. The common mole is a small pest with a rounded body and a snout. Moles spend most all their lives underground not seeing what goes on around them. They dig and dig, and can’t stop digging. If you encounter piles of dirt, this is certain evidence of mole activity.

The sexes are very similar in appearance, but males are usually slightly larger. Female moles are the only mammals that possess a normal ovary as well as a testicular area that produces a large amount of testosterone. This may explain why female moles are as aggressive as males when defending their territories. It may also account for the external similarities between males and females.

There is no conservation action targeted at this species.

Roley Moley held for ransom?

The ladies in Hemingbrough's Convenience Store are distressed that their Roley Moley has been taken away, on the sly. Who would do that? The same person who tore down the poster about him? They wonder if he is he being held for ransom.

The good news is the Roley Moley in the shop was only a look-a-like decoy; the original is still free and will be making more village photo-call appearances - with a minder!

Mole gets his 'secrets' from the Parish Council notice board, that most councilors don't bother to read! I have been asked for his or her name - Holy Moley, Malcolm Mole, Mangy Moley and Roley Moley have been suggested.